High-ranking police boss takes home whopping amount of overtime pay

An officer in the traffic unit racked up over $60,000 in overtime pay.

A 19 Action News investigation is raising questions about how much some Cleveland Police officers make in overtime.

We requested a list of the ten Cleveland Police officers making the most in overtime. One person on the list stood out--the Fifth District Commander Dennis Hill. Last year, he made more than $42,000 in overtime.

Hill was recently promoted to commander. Last year, he was a Captain and he earned over $86,000 in base pay. He somehow found a way to rack up $42,000 in overtime.

The city says a Cleveland patrol officer only makes $55,539.89.

City Hall says Hill made a lot of overtime since he oversaw police at the Muni Lot for Browns games, and he managed police for other special events.

He also did time serving as acting commander before he got promoted. But $42,000 in overtime?

"One person making that much money, I guess they could hire a lot more cops and make the streets a whole lot safer," said one taxpayer.

Hill is the highest ranking officer on the top ten overtime list. Most others work in the homicide unit and they get called out at all hours.

Others on the list included officers assigned to the airport, or the traffic unit. Those officers often spend long hours at road construction sites.

An officer in that unit topped the list at $61,000 in overtime pay.

We reached out to Dennis Hill, but a sergeant in the office said the commander was unavailable, and he wanted a phone number to call back. As of this evening we haven't heard from him.

Hill now earns a base salary of $100,000 a year.

With the way police pay is set up, with that much overtime, he also would've collected another 20 thousand in comp time last year.